Jannietta

When we look into a mirror what do we see - the reflection of ourselves of course. But what if the whole world was a mirror and when we looked into it we saw a mirror image of ourselves reflected right back at us? In this way what we see outside is reflection of what is on the inside of us. To see how this might look in practice read my blog 'Keeping ourselves right by making others wrong' The war out there becomes the war in here.The conflict out there becomes the conflict in here.The abuse out there becomes the abuse in here.The judgement out there becomes the judgement in here.The lack of respect, understanding and acceptance out there is a mirror of the very same thing in here. Jesus understood this when he implored us to take a look at the plank in our own eye rather than to keep trying to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. Like Ghandi he knew if we wanted change we must be willing to 'be the change.' Why is it that when we look outside of ourselves we see ourselves looking back at us? We as humans seem to suffer from a deep unquestioned belief that something is wrong with us. This belief was was a consequence of our fall from grace – or in more scientific terms a consequence of our evolution into animals gifted with self awareness. Deep in our bones we know that we are inherently good - made in the exact image of the God Energy (good energy) that created us but we have forgotten this. We have become lost in the illusion of ourselves as separate from that goodness and therefore lacking in some way. This sense of something not being quite right is the essential wound inflicting mankind. When we are wounded we hurt. Sometimes that hurt is so painful that we cannot live with it. Because the thought that we are lacking in some way goes against the grain of who we know ourselves to be deep down we must push the painful thought away from ourselves so that we can breathe easily again. This is called behaving self righteously. It is how we make ourselves right by pushing our wrongness away from ourselves and letting it land outside of us. Then what was a fault inside us becomes a fault inside ‘the other person’ and has nothing to do with us! In this way the fault we rejected in ourselves in the first place we now reject in others. This is how division is caused – in relationships, in families, between friends and between countries and nations. The fault, no matter where it is found is still unacceptable. This leads humanity into dangerous waters. Since we cannot fully accept others and we cannot fully accept ourselves where is there left to go? ‘There is nowhere else to gofor nowhere is now herein this moment’ In truth this moment is all we ever have but we are unable to fully accept it because of our perception that there is something wrong with it. We perceive life as a problem that needs to be sorted out and we won’t allow ourselves to rest until we have it all sorted. We live our lives imagining that some day things will be better and we work incessantly towards that end. But what if life is not faulty in the first place? What if the fault as we perceive it, whether it be inside us or outside us is not actually a fault at all but rather a song that is haunting us for a good reason? What if that perceived lack is only a thought and not the absolute truth after all.What if it has no more substance than a fleeting cloud floating across the vast expanse of sky? If this is true where does that leave us? What do we get to do with our lives if we aren’t fixing things? If we aren’t following the latest drama about what is wrong with the world then what would preoccupy our minds..... (Supposing that our minds are meant to be preoccupied!!!) ? Let’s just sit with this idea that there is nothing wrong with the world and see where it takes us. What if the only thing that is wrong with the world is our thinking that there is something wrong with it and the subsequent thought that tells us that we need to fix it. Needing to fix things means we are unable to accept life as it presents (gifts) itself to us in the present moment. Life as it presents now in all its complexity, is a gift. It is a gift because it offers us all an invitation, minute by minute, to wake up from the fixed, rigid mindset that has us trapped in the belief that something is wrong. Life is always good. It is our disconnected minds that tell us otherwise. It is the thought that we need to fix things that is the cause of our unease.What would happen if instead of fixing life we accepted it? If instead of rejecting the gift we accepted it? Whatever is here now, whatever is presenting itself as life in this moment is what must be accepted because it is what is. It is life as it is. Anything else doesn’t exist as yet. Acceptance does not mean that we say we are okay with everything that is going on in the world or that we can’t respond to our desire to see things grow. After all few among us would accept that a rose bud would never blossom into a rose or that a seed would never grow into flower. Acceptance is the very thing that allows growth to occur.Acceptance leads us to a place where a better world is created because it opens a pathway which leads to a new way of behaving and relating to each other. When we see horrible things happening we want to sort them out. But sorting them out, out there, never gets at the root of the problem in here. It fixes things for the time being or it shifts the problem somewhere else for a time. But the basic problem of perception is still there - the belief that something is wrong with us is still there and this perpetuates the problem that there is something out there that is wrong and must be made right or removed. Thus the cycle of fixing continues. We go round and round in circles not getting anywhere. The mythical somewhere where everything is ‘as is should be’ never materialises. The good news is that it is already here it’s just that our eyes are blinded and cannot see. Acceptance is the way forward. We need to accept that it is only our thinking that tells us there is something wrong with us. We need to accept that what we think becomes embedded as a feeling inside us. We need to accept that feeling without elaborating on it, without believing it to be the sum of who we are, without strengthening it with more faulty thinking. We need to look within and be present (be with) what ever we find there without moving to change it, fix it, diminish it or alter it in any way. Just be with it. This is simple but not easy. When we accept our thoughts, our feelings and our emotions and give them room to be, rather than push them away from us we find that they are suddenly transformed. They appear as the temporary thing that they are. There is no real substance to them. Sitting with our uncomfortable feelings helps us to realise (make real) the truth that they are held in place by something larger. They are held by our presence; our essence, our divine nature. Acceptance leads us to feel the vastness of who we are, body, mind and spirit. In this way we get in touch with the ground of our being; with the love that is at the core of our being; with the love that we are; with our spirit that unfolds as matter. Our minds want to tell us that we are what we think, that we are our emotions and our reactions but our feeling body tells us something different. It tells us that we are the space that allows thoughts and feelings to come and go. Knowing ourselves as this space is crucial because it alters how we see and perceive our own human form. Experiencing ourselves as more than our limited thoughts and feeling the ground of our own goodness allows us to accept ourselves as we are. Without the thought that we are no good there is nothing to push away from ourselves. Rather knowing that we are good, we are enough, we are divine allows the thought to grow that tells us ‘If I am this then you must be too’. This is a thought that is uniting rather than dividing. It is a thought that joins us together. ﻿ United we stand divided we fall.﻿ When we relate to each other beyond ego in this way a new world is born. When we know with our minds and believe in our bodies that we are divine, god energy appearing as matter – that we are good, safe, loved, enough, strong, beautiful, wise and eternally alive then there is nothing to get defensive about anymore. We can simply let any thought to the contrary evaporate into thin air as it passes through us rather than becoming lodged in us. When I can sit with my own perfect imperfection then I can sit with yours too. The result is harmony because neither of us is trying to fix or change the other. This is deep acceptance. It is the unconditional love that frees us to discover who we truly are beyond the faulty mindset we have grown up with and which has so far come to falsely define us. Beginning to practice deep acceptance is the way that we begin to know ourselves differently, the way that we begin to know others differently and the way that we begin to experience life differently. Through deep acceptance a new world will be born.

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The opinions I express here are my own. However I offer them with the word 'syat' next to them. 'Syat' is a word used by the Jain Tribe in India which means 'To the best of my knowledge SO FAR.' In the spirit of openness I invite comments from anyone whether you agree with my point of view or not. In this way we can all learn and grow together. Thank you.